- Under the MOSAiC mission, the German icebreaker RV Polarstern will set out for the Arctic packed with supplies and scientific equipment for a year-long mission to explore the northern part of the earth.
- The MOSAiC mission stands for Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate.
- The icebreaker will be utilized as a base by the scientists from 17 nations who will study the impact of climate change on the Arctic and how it could affect the rest of the world.
- Under this project, scientists plan to sail the ship into the Arctic Ocean, tether it to a large piece of sea ice and allow the water to freeze around them, effectively trapping themselves in the vast sheet of white that forms over the North Pole each winter.
- The mission is funded from U.S. National Science Foundation, the US Department of Energy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.
- The mission comes about 125 years after Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen first managed to seal his wooden expedition ship, Fram, into the ice during a three-year expedition to the North Pole.
